Standing Up to Hate

Published on December 19, 2011 by Georgi

Every morning over the summer before I turned 13, I would wake up to the sound of a muezzin reciting the Muslim call to prayer on a loud speaker, stumble out of my bunk bed, and tiptoe outside to a picnic table where I would practice reading the Haftorah. It was August 1993, and I was spending the second of many summers at an international, multicultural summer camp. I may be the only person in the world who associates the words “Allahu Akhar” (the beginning of the Muslim call to prayer) with preparing for her bat mitzvah.

And yet at the time, I didn’t think it was unusual for an American Jewish preteen to hang out with kids named Mohammed or to have close friends who wore hijab (women’s head covering). They were my friends, and that’s just the way it was. I didn’t realize how unique my experience was until September 11, 2001, when all across my country, patriotic, law-abiding American Muslims were being met with suspicion and hatred. Only then did I realize that few Americans really knew their Muslim neighbors.

And that is why I was so excited when TLC announced that it would be airing “All-American Muslim,”  a new reality TV show that follows the lives of five ordinary Lebanese-American Shia Muslim families in Michigan. Finally, even people in homogenous areas of the country could get to know Muslims and realize that most are peaceful, patriotic, and not all that different from you and me.

Indeed, the show is fairly mundane, tracking a newlywed couple, new parents, a high school football coach, a single woman in her 30s, an aspiring nightclub owner, and a childless couple’s struggle with infertility. We’re not exactly talking about little two year old girls running around in Madonna cones or a polygamist Brady Bunch here. And yet “All-American Muslim” has found itself at the center of a whirlwind of controversy.

A Florida-based group that purports to defend Christian morality and traditional American values by railing against so-called “secular progressives” and “the liberal gay agenda” has found a new target in “All-American Muslim.” The group, known as the Florida Family Association (FFA), has slammed the show for not portraying Muslims in a negative enough light. The “heart” of the problem, according to an op-ed they quote on their website, is that “the Muslims it depicts are for the most part undoubtedly harmless, completely uninterested in jihad and Islamic supremacism.” Perhaps only a reality TV show following the life of an Al-Qaeda terrorist would have met their criteria for authenticity. Equally alarming to FFA, the stars of the show have had the audacity to assert their patriotism: “One of the most troubling scenes occurred at the introduction of the program when a Muslim police officer stated ‘I really am American. No ifs and or buts about it.’"  For them, a Muslim asserting his love for this country can only be suspect; no Muslim can truly be “all-American.”

FFA has put pressure on the show’s corporate sponsors to pull their ads, and it has succeeded. A number of companies have removed their ads during that time slot, but only Lowe’s, the national hardware chain, has publicly admitted to caving into FFA’s lobbying.

Thankfully, there has been a national outcry. In just a few days, more than 41,000 American consumers, including myself, have signed an online petition to the remaining “All-American Muslim” advertisers, asking them not to pull their ads. All over the country, religious leaders, politicians, and celebrities have denounced Lowe’s decision and FFA’s bigotry. (My favorite was actor Kal Penn's tweet: “Our next movie: ‘Harold & Kumar Do Not Go To @Lowes.’”)

As a Jew cognizant of our own history and status as a religious minority in the United States, I am acutely aware that this is not about Lowe’s or some reality TV show.

This is about standing up to hatred, intolerance and bigotry.

This is about the core values of tikkun olam (repairing the world) and social responsibility.

This is about what led Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel to march with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in Selma, what led Rabbi Ira Sanders to speak out against racial segregation in Arkansas, and what led Rabbi Stephen Wise to help found the NAACP. And this is about saying no, that as Jews and Americans, we will not sit by silently and allow fellow peaceful, patriotic Americans to be maligned simply because of their religious beliefs.

I invite you to join me in signing the petition and asking the remaining advertisers on “All-American Muslim” not to cave into fear-mongering and religious-based hatred.

Georgi Vogel Rosen recently helped coordinate the Interfaith Day of Service between ReachOut! and Muslims Against Hunger. She is a member of the Core Team for planning the Third Annual Muslim Jewish Conference to be held this July in Europe and serves in the conference’s Public Relations Department. She also has volunteered around strengthening Jewish-Muslim relations with the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding, American Jewish Committee ACCESS Boston and the American Islamic Congress, and the Boston Workmen’s Circle Jewish-Muslim Relations Committee.